It was supposed to be him. And it was supposed to be her. Instead it was neither.
Hermione had started out asking him, in the shitty backhanded way he’d pushed her into, to attend Slughorn’s Christmas party with her. And then Lavender had kissed him, and he’d let her because it felt good to be wanted by someone. It felt uncomplicated where everything with Hermione was insanely complicated.
Probably because there were so many feelings all wrapped up in everything with Hermione.
He’d screwed this up royally. Ron didn’t even want Lavender, in all honesty. It was fun snogging her, she was all enthusiastic and simple and soft in ways that he sometimes wished Hermione would be, but she wasn’t Hermione and so no matter how much empty-headed fun he had with her, he didn’t actually care about Lavender. When he laid in his bed at night after hanging with Lavender, he tried his best not to wish it was Hermione in his arms every day. It was hard not to wallow in a bit of self pity. He’d done it to himself. And he didn’t know how to stop torpedoing everything he wanted.
There was no good answer at this point, he thought. If he told her he’d never wanted Lavender, he was a bad person. If he told her he did want Lavender but he wanted her more, he was a bad person. Poison either way, and there was no escape that he could see.
There was no one he could talk to about it either. Harry didn’t want to hear it, convinced Ron was messing up their friend group (he was), and Ginny certainly didn’t, since she thought he was a hypocritical prat (he was). Who was he going to bring it up to? Seamus? Any of his brothers? Hell no. He was on his own to fix things.
If it was chess, he’d know what to do. Hermione didn’t move in what he considered fair directions, never the way he’d thought she would. She was all unexpected slides to the left and sneak attacks. Devious. She was devious. Asking McLaggen to be her date to the stupid Christmas Slug Club party had been a Bludger to the head for him. He hadn’t seen that one coming at all, and oh it had hit every insecurity he had. She knew him too well and so could hurt him worse than anyone. Nobody could hit him in his soft spots the way she could.
Why couldn’t she have just taken Harry? At least then Ron would know she was all right, not with some handsy tosser.
Because going with Harry wouldn’t have bothered Ron, and she wanted him bothered. It wouldn’t have been revenge, and she wanted revenge. And how did you stop a girl from wanting revenge against you?
He couldn’t very well tell her look I wanted you for my girlfriend but we can’t stop fighting and now I’ve made it so you hate me but that’s not what I want and I don’t know how to go back to how we were and get you back.
This sort of thing would never happen to Bill or Charlie.
You’re so beautiful when you’re angry, but can you just not be angry at me for once?
It was always so bloody hard to talk to her, they both got so damn prickly and took offense at every little word. Sometimes he thought she deliberately interpreted everything he said in the worst light, and yeah maybe sometimes that was the only way it could be interpreted but she never gave him the benefit of the doubt.
And sometimes he did the same thing to her.
I thought you were mine and I was yours and I’m so bloody stupid.
Lavender was an ego boost that he wished he hadn’t needed. It felt like he’d stepped in a trap and instead of trying to escape, he kept pretending he was right where he wanted to be. Stupid ego.
Everything he did with Hermione turned out wrong and he really didn’t understand why. She set off his defensive temper and he set off hers. Sometimes he saw tears in her eyes when she was angry with him and it hit him he’d gone too far, but he’d finally crossed a line he couldn’t un-cross when he hooked up with Lavender.
She always had to go tit for tat with him, though, so she’d immediately crossed that same line picking McLaggen.
Fucking McLaggen. Ron didn’t trust him as far as he could throw him. Hermione didn’t know what she was getting into with that troll. He was probably going to try to feel her up at the party, and she wasn’t going to want that no matter how angry she was about Lavender. She hadn’t grown up with brothers like Ginny, who’d known by age six exactly where to slam a knee if she wanted to drop a male opponent and wasn’t squeamish about it, either. Ginny would have McLaggen down within minutes. Hermione was smart, but he wasn’t sure she was up to fending off McLaggen. She might not realize how far a bloke like that was willing to take it, and her desire for revenge would blind her until it was too late.
The thought made Ron so worried that it burst into unreasonable anger, and he stormed off for the party. He could just sit outside and wait to make sure she got out okay, away from McLaggen okay.
Maybe tell her off a little for taking risks while he was at it.
He would be damned if he tried to crash the party, though, so he sat outside in a dark corner, watching the door in case she came out. If McLaggen went after her, it wouldn’t be inside the party with witnesses. Even blinded with rage, Hermione wouldn’t do anything in front of the party. She might go outside with the handsy bastard, though.
Ron sat in increasing misery, telling himself he was stupid and a jackass and should just go back to the common room, but he couldn’t make himself leave. Not until he saw her.
Eventually the door opened and out slipped Hermione, a look of relief on her face. And then, though he was unobtrusively wedged into a dark corner and shouldn’t be visible, her eyes went unerringly to him.
Her brows snapped together and she stormed up to him. “Why are you here?” she demanded in an angry whisper.
“I wanted to make sure you got back safely,” he grumbled. “That McLaggen is a dirty git-”
“No faith in me at all-”
“It has nothing to do with that-”
She let out a derisive laugh that scraped across every nerve ending. “Where’s Lavender?”
Ron’s lip pulled back in a snarl. “What do you care? You didn’t want to take me anyway.”
“You have no idea what I want,” she snapped back.
He really didn’t, obviously, because at one time he’d thought maybe she wanted him. “You telling me you want McLaggen?” he scoffed.
Her face flushed darkly, and the same snarl, the same venom he could still feel seemed to ripple through her. “Maybe if you could stop yourself from being a total bastard, you wouldn’t be standing out here instead of in there,” she said through her teeth.
“Maybe if you could stop yourself being such a bitch, I would be.”
Her eyes widened, and for a horrible instant Ron thought she might slap him. Part of him wanted her to, because he knew he deserved it. But she didn’t. She looked at him with disgust and that was infinitely, sickeningly worse.
“I can’t even look at you,” she told him quietly. “Go back to Lavender.”
They stared at each other for a moment and then she turned on her heel and walked away, heading for the Gryffindor common room. After a few paces, he followed her.
She didn’t acknowledge him as she walked, her chin held high, and he followed her the entire way, until she was safely climbing the stairs to the girls’ dormitory.
He stood in the empty common room, staring at the fireplace and wondering how he could fuck up his life any worse, when McLaggen came in.
He sneered at Ron but continued past without a word, jogging up the stairs to the boys’ dormitory. Ron watched him with narrowed eyes.
You don’t deserve her, you bloody bastard.
Neither do I.